Thèses sur le sujet « Globalization – Political aspects – European Union countries »

Defence date: 12 June 2019
Examining Board: Prof. Alexander Trechsel, University of Lucerne (Supervisor); Prof. Giovanni Sartor, European University Institute; Prof. Luigi Curini, University of Milan; Prof. Anamaria Dutceac Segesten, Lund University
A Public Sphere and a demos are intrinsic key elements of any democratic society. The literature has pointed out that social media platforms can play an important role in developing direct interactions between users and creating a sense of community. Can Twitter contribute to the emergence of a transnational networked European Public Sphere and European demos? This thesis examines the contribution of the European Political Twittersphere to this question. I divide the question into three articles. In each I use a different theoretical framework and methodological approach to two datasets of two issue publics (the Schengen agreement and the transatlantic trade partnership, TTIP) collected through the public Twitter Streaming API from August 2016 to April 2017. In the first article I explore the actor level of the networks created from the Twitter data. I investigate whether these Twitter networks constitute networked publics where non-elite actors receive attention and play an important role by the number of mentions and retweets. In the second article I explore the question of the constitution of European transnational networks. To do so, I geolocate the accounts involved in the two networks to identify the type of interactions the users establish, whether national or transnational. In the third article I analyse the content of these networks by extracting what sentiments the users express for the topics, and whether they see themselves and the topics as national or European. The three articles capture three features of the European Political Twittersphere. First, the results indicate the presence of transnational European networks. Second, built from the bottom-up where non-elite actors receive most of the attention. And third, composed of a multilingual demoi where the users see themselves and the topics as European. However, although these mapped Twitter networks contribute to some extent to transnational interaction and a sense of community, the deliberative quality of these networks is low.

This thesis examined the role of supranational organisations (SOs) in the governance of tourism in a North-South context. Focusing on the issue area of development cooperation, this thesis investigated the question of how and why SOs got involved in tourism in developing countries, and more specifically, in small island developing states. Such involvement may occur either directly through aid funded projects or indirectly through international trade regimes that impact on tourism in the aid recipient countries. The thesis adopted a case study approach focussing on the European Union�s (EU�s) involvement in the governance of tourism in South Pacific island states. Grounded in a history of colonialism, the EU has been involved in the �development� of the South Pacific for more than three decades, which allowed to track changes in development philosophy over time. Focusing on the concept of power, the case was assessed in a multi-scalar manner, analysing the EU�s involvement from the global down to the local level. Never before has an entire multilevel polity been assessed in one coherent case study, incorporating actors situated at all levels and ranging from supranational organisations to national governments, businesses, communities, and individuals. The methods employed in this thesis included interviews, participant observation, document analysis (policy documents and newspapers), and subsequently critical discourse analysis. The latter served to highlight the so-called �third face of power� (Lukes 1974), which is closely related to the concept of ideological hegemony. Interviews were conducted in Fiji and Samoa with officials of the South Pacific Delegations of the EU, officials of tourism authorities, NGOs, tourism operators and community members. Elite interviews in Brussels were conducted with officials of the European Commission and the European Parliament. Under all scales and �faces� of power the EU was found to be the dominant actor, while the issue of self-interest appeared to play a key role. At a macro-level, the EU clearly dominated in most overt decision-making situations during negotiations on aid and trade agreements. As concerned the inclusion of tourism in the agreements, the relative importance of the sector was clearly dependent on the European Commission�s prevailing attitude on �tourism and development� at any point in time. At a meso- and micro-level, the EU�s influence was less obvious yet nonetheless existent, for example through funding rules and the use of European consultants. Indirect influence also occurred at the national level. In particular the substitution of a preferential trade regime with a free trade agreement (the Economic Partnership Agreements), which is currently being negotiated between the EU and the Pacific Islands, is likely to have a significant impact on the economic importance of tourism, as well as public policy in the South Pacific. In a mini case study of Samoa, it was found that the resulting changes in tourism policy would have a significant impact �on the ground�, in particular with regard to rates of local ownership and control. Overall, power relations were found to be highly unequal and self-determination and empowerment have largely not been achieved. However, more research is needed to examine the ability to generalise the findings to other geographic regions or other types of SOs. The key contribution of this thesis in the theoretical realm constitutes its bridging of agency and structure within multi-level governance, which may be conceived as a �third way� to either dependency theory-influenced studies (global/structure) or community approaches (local/agency).

Thesis (MA)--University of Stellenbosch, 2002.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In October 1999 South Africa and the European Union (EU) signed a free trade agreement, the Trade Development and Co-operation Agreement (TDCA), which came into effect on 1 January 2000. The TDCA was developed to enhance bilateral trade, economic-, political- and social cooperation and consists of three components - the creation of a Free Trade Area between South-Africa and the EU, EU financial aid to South Africa through the European Programme for Reconstruction and Development (EPRD), and project aid. However, the EU, in an effort to secure the best possible deal for itself, often behave in its own interests (through the manipulation of the Wine and Spirits Agreement) during the negotiations for the TDCA. The goal of this study was to establish what exactly trademarks are, and what implications the EU's protection of intellectual property rights on wine and spirits trademarks will have on i) the South African wine industry, ii) whether South Africa could have exercised another option, iii) whether this action has created a precedent with which the EU can, in future, again force South Africa or any of its other developing trade partners to make concessions, and iv) who gains the most from the TDCA. The concludes that the EU, through the manipulation of the Wine and Spirits Agreement, left South Africa with no choice by to concede the use of the contested trademarks - something that has already taken its toll on the South African wine industry - in order to save the TDCA. This action created a precedent that the EU will, in future, again be in a position to threaten developing countries with the termination of an agreement should they fail to comply with its demands. Finally, the conclusion is made that even though the TDCA was created to assist South Africa with its reintegration into the world market, it will ultimately be the EU that benefits most from the agreement.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Suid-Afrika en die Europese Unie (EU) het in Oktober 1999 In vryehandelsooreenkoms, die Trade Development and Co-operation Agreement (TDCA) onderteken, wat op 1 Januarie 2000 in werking getree het. Die TDCA is ontwerp om bilaterale handel-, ekonomiese-, politieke- en sosiale samewerking te bevorder en bestaan uit drie komponente, naamlik die skep van 'n vryehandelgebied tussen die EU en Suid-Afrika; finansiele steun deur die EU aan Suid-Afrika onder die European Programme for Reconstruction and Development (EPRD) en projekhulp. Die EU het egter dikwels in eiebelang opgetree (deur middel van die manipulasie van die Wyn- en Spiritus Ooreenkoms) tydens die onderhandelingsproses in 'n poging om die beste moontlike ooreenkoms vir homself te beding. Die doel van hierdie studie was om te bepaal wat presies handelsmerke is, en watter implikasies die EU se beskerming van intellektuele eiendomsregte aangaande wyn- en spiritushandelsmerke op i) die Suid-Afrikaanse wynbedryf sal he, ii) of Suid-Afrika 'n ander opsie kon uitoefen, iii) of hierdie aksie In presedent geskep het waarmee die EU Suid-Afrika of enige van sy ander ontwikkelende handelsvennote in die toekoms weer sal kan dwing om toegewings te maak, en iv) wie die meeste baat vind by die TDCA. Die studie het tot die gevolgtrekking gekom dat die EU deur die manipulasie van die Wyn- en Spiritus Ooreenkoms aan Suid-Afrika geen keuse gegee het nie as om die gebruik van die betwiste handelsmerke op te se - iets wat reeds die Suid-Afrikaanse wynbedryf geknou het - in 'n poging om die TDCA te behou. Hierdie optrede skep 'n presedent dat die EU voortaan in onderhandelings met ander ontwikkelende state weer kan dreig om die hele ooreenkoms te verongeluk indien daar nie aan sy eise voldoen word nie. In die laaste instansie is daar tot die gevolgtrekking gekom dat, alhoewel die TDCA daarop gemik was om Suid-Afrika te help met sy herintegrasie tot die wereldmark, dit uiteindelik die EU is wat die meeste daarby gaan baat.

Abstract (version française suit)

Although the EU is a privileged point of focus for political science studies, its discursive activity has not received all the attention it deserves. This corpus analysis adopts a descriptive approach, based on the Neo-Aristotelian trend in argumentation theory, by using both analytical categories of classical rhetoric and (emic or etic) categories that belong to the conceptualization of the debate entertained by its own participants. The corpus consists of public interventions by representatives of the three main EU Institutions (Commission, European Council and Parliament). The speeches were pronounced between June and December 2005. Since it is discussed every seven years, the topic of the Financial Perspectives offers the possibility of making diachronic comparisons; it also allows identifying values, projects and means of the European construction at a rhetorical level. The last six months of 2005 followed two significant events: the conflicting attitudes of European Governments regarding the Iraq war and the rejection of the Constitutional Treaty by referendums.

In the absence of any other metaphysical or natural foundation, the technocratic enterprise provides the European project with a rational and secular justification that is not always assumed as such, though, by the presidents of the Commission. The conceptual metaphors stemming from the preambles to the treaties convey the idea that European integration will be achieved by triggering a gradual process that should lead to the realization of an ultimate aim.

From a rhetorical point of view, the Financial Perspectives are in need of legitimacy. In 2005, the rhetorical invocation of dates/milestones, abundantly used by former presidents of the Commission, does not seem to work anymore. Both the requirement of unanimity in the legislative procedure and the habitus of European deliberation make it necessary to find an agreement; this consequently promotes “consensus” as a meta-communicational argument. The notion of a “consensus” runs against such theoretical (epistemological) and pragmatic objections that it proves imperious to wonder about its origin and roots. One should take into account not only scholarly conceptions of “consensus” (Habermas, the Deliberative Democracy movement), but also naïve and popular visions of it.

The EU Institutions are aware of the difficulty they meet in awakening citizens’ interest, and they have developed their Communication Policy in order to give themselves the means to overcome this obstacle. A systematic reflection on their strategy should take into account the divergent opinions of Moravscik and Hix, as well as the possibility of grounding the EU project anew on a revival of ancient homonoïa.

DISCLAIMER. The content of this thesis represents solely the views of its author and cannot in any circumstances be regarded as the official position of the European Commission.

Résumé

Quoique l’Union Européenne (UE) soit un objet de prédilection pour les politologues, son activité discursive n’a pas reçu toute l’attention méritée.

La thèse offre une analyse de corpus effectuée sur base d’une grille de lecture incluant des catégories rhétoriques étiques et émiques. Elle adopte une approche descriptive puisée dans le versant néo-aristotélicien de l’étude de l’argumentation. Le corpus a été constitué d’interventions publiques tenues par les représentants des trois principales Institutions Européennes (Commission, Conseil Européen, Parlement Européen) entre juin et décembre 2005. Le sujet des Perspectives Financières, débattu à intervalles réguliers, permet des comparaisons diachroniques ;il permet aussi de contraster les valeurs, les projets et les moyens de la construction européenne. La conjoncture des six derniers mois de 2005 présente la particularité supplémentaire que le projet de Traité Constitutionnel venait d’être rejeté et que les gouvernements européens s’étaient auparavant divisés sur l’intervention en Irak.

En l’absence d’un fondement métaphysique ou naturel, l’entreprise technocratique fournit au projet politique européen une justification rationnelle et laïcisée, même si elle n’est pas assumée explicitement en tant que telle par tous les présidents de la Commission. Les métaphores conceptuelles mobilisées dans les préambules des traités traduisent le fait que l’unification européenne devrait s’accomplir à la fois par l’entremise de réalisations progressives et à travers la poursuite d’un objectif lointain.

Sur le plan rhétorique, les Perspectives Financières sont en manque d’une légitimité emblématique. La clause des rendez-vous, des étapes cruciales, abondamment utilisée dans le passé par les présidents de la Commission, cesse de fonctionner en 2005. La nécessité d’un accord, issue tant de la lettre de la procédure législative par unanimité que de la coutume des délibérations, est devenue matière à un argument méta-communicationnel qui en est arrivé à englober toute circonstance susceptible de faciliter le « consensus ». Cette dernière notion soulève des réticences théoriques (épistémologiques) et pragmatiques qui imposent de s’interroger sur son origine. La problématisation que nous avons opérée tient compte non seulement des conceptions savantes du « consensus » (Habermas, courant de la Démocratie Délibérative), mais aussi de ses variantes populaires ou vulgarisées.

Les Institutions Européennes sont conscientes de la difficulté qu’il y a à motiver l’intérêt citoyen, et elles ont voulu, à travers leur Politique de Communication, se donner les moyens de dépasser cet obstacle. La thèse mène, à ce propos, une réflexion plus générale qui tient compte des avis opposés de Moravcsik et Hix, et d’une éventuelle refondation dans l’homonoïa de la rhétorique classique.

DISCLAIMER. Le contenu de cette thèse représente le point de vue de son seul auteur et ne peut en aucune circonstance être considéré comme la position officielle de la Commission Européenne.

Doctorat en Langues et lettres
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La recherche menée dans cette thèse traite du discours de l'Union européenne sur l'espace judiciaire européen entre 1996 et 1999. En convoquant l'analyse du discours et la lexicométrie dans un cadre théorique de la sémantique argumentative, elle analyse le sens des mots autour de l'expression « espace de liberté, de sécurité et de justice ». L'objectif est de définir comment s'élabore la réappropriation de valeurs universelles au profit du discours et de l'identité européenne véhiculée par les procédés argumentatifs utilisés pour représenter l'espace judiciaire européen. Le contexte politique et les théories linguistiques de la méthode d'analyse exposés, cette thèse porte sur les conditions de communication du discours et de sa particularité sémantique, en montrant qu'il construit une identité en triade renvoyant aux trois valeurs de son emblème triptyque (« liberté, sécurité et justice ») : les institutions, la criminalité organisée et les citoyens. Elle révèle les indices linguistiques de cette construction identitaire avec ses enjeux politiques et de légitimation en introduisant la notion de « normalisation discursive ». Celle-ci adopte un schéma linguistique très marqué conduisant à la mise en œuvre d'un processus de « manipulation argumentative » défini et démontré dans ce travail. Les résultats illustrent que la normalisation et la manipulation engendrent une circularité du discours reposant sur le conflit de deux orientations discursives : celle d'un discours sécuritaire et celle d'un discours sur l'État de droit et la démocratie.

L'étude a porté sur deux outils élaborés par l’Union européenne à l'appui de ses politiques d'allocation d'aide extérieure au bénéfice principalement d'Etats en développement et participant à sa stratégie de promotion du respect de droits de l’homme dans les Etats tiers. Il s'agit du mécanisme de conditionnalité démocratique d’une part, et de la doctrine fondée sur le concept de gouvernance d’autre part. L'une des principales critiques que la doctrine adresse à l’Union au sujet de sa politique de conditionalité est son incapacité à répondre à l’une des attentes fondamentales qui la sous-tend, à savoir :la naissance d’une politique d’aide extérieure détachée des considérations géopolitiques et visant à protéger et promouvoir efficacement les droits de l’homme. Dans la mesure où la doctrine en attribue en général la responsabilité à l’absence de clarté et de prévisibilité du mécanisme de la conditionnalité démocratique, cette critique eut dû conduire à l’élaboration d’un régime davantage juridicisé. Or, l'émergence de la doctrine fondée sur le concept de gouvernance révèle que l’Union n’a pas opté pour une telle solution. C’est alors que, divisant mon étude en deux parties, la première affectée à l’étude du mécanisme conditionnel et la seconde affectée à l’étude de la doctrine de gouvernance, je me suis interrogée sur les raisons pour lesquelles l’Union avait pu choisir de recourir d’abord à un appel au droit, et ensuite à une repolitisation partielle de son mécanisme. Prenant appui sur une étude des documents officiels des institutions européennes, de la pratique de l'Union et des théories des relations internationales, l'étude tend à révéler les atouts et les limites théoriques de chacune de ces stratégies déstinées à suciter des réformes particulières dans les Etats partenaires de l’Union.Il apparaîtra que l’appel au droit opéré dans le cadre du mécanisme de conditionnalité répondait à des besoins et à une logique spécifiques lors de son institution, mais que la forme juridicisée du mécanisme conditionnel tel qu’institué se heurtait à diverses limites. La doctrine fondée sur le concept de gouvernance, dans le même temps qu’elle acte ces limites et tend à les dépasser, amène à de nouveaux questionnements.

The study related to both EU tools, affecting its external aid policies and contributing to its human rights strategy :conditionality and governance. One of the main critic that the doctrine addresses to EU conditionality, is its incapacity to lead to an external aid free of geopolitical considerations and acting to protect and promote effectively the human rights. The doctrine explains this weakness by pointing out the mechanism of conditionality’s lack of clearness and previsibility. Despite this critic is pleading for a more legalized mechanism, the governance strategy reveals that the Union did not choose such a solution.Then, dividing the study into two parts, the first assigned to conditional mechanism and the second assigned to governance, I’m asking the reason why a less legalized mecanism succeeded to conditionality. Based on cooperation agreements, strategic orientations, EU practice and the international relations theories, the study tends to reveal the assets and limits of the two strategies. It appears that the legalization process of conditionality can be explained by specific needs but it encountered various limits. At the same times, while strategy based on Governance adresses some of them, this new tool reveals new questions.

Doctorat en droit
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Defence date: 31 March 2017
Examining Board: Professor Pepper Culpepper, formerly EUI/University of Oxford (Supervisor); Professor Hanspeter Kriesi, EUI (Co-Supervisor); Professor Ferdinand Müller-Rommel, Leuphana Universität Lüneburg; Professor Maurits Van der Veen, College of William & Mary
This dissertation deals with the question of how the partisan nature of government still matters in the current globalized and post-industrial world. In particular, it compares the representativeness of two contemporary centre-left governments with that of two centre-left executives from the 1970s in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. According to the more provocative theories about the state of contemporary representative democracy, these countries should be forerunners of a general European trend in which governments care more about technical competence rather than political representation and responsiveness. These tendencies are expected to particularly affect the partisanship of Labour ministers. In order to test these theories, I do a comparative content analysis of how Labour finance ministers/Chancellors justify the yearly government budget in front of the parliament. The justifications are divided into those that characterize the government as representative of the partisan redistributive preferences (input-justifications) VS those that profile it as a competent caretaker of public finances (output-justifications). Following the above-mentioned theories, the hypothesis is that today the output-justifications are more important than in the past. As this approach is relatively novel with regards to the study of responsiveness, the thesis also dedicates one chapter to the justification strategies of a technical and a neoliberal government. The purpose of this extra comparison is to have more empirical evidence of what renders an output-justification different from an input-justification. By incorporating these two cases, thus, I get a deeper comparative insight into what is a typical left-wing/partisan discourse characteristic and what constitutes governmental/institutional talk. This extra comparison, consequently, allows me to reflect more deeply on the findings emerging from the overtime comparison of Labour governments. The findings of my research tell a two-sided story. On the one hand, contrary to my hypothesis, the contemporary cases feature slightly more input-justifications than the governments from the 1970s. On the other, the logic of the discourses suggests that, while in the 1970s the responsiveness to social needs was presented as a policy goal per se, today the input-justifications tend to be more subordinated to justifications about economic and financial considerations. The findings thus speak both to theories according to which today we are not witnessing a decline of political representation, but simply a change in kind, as well to the theories speaking of a gradual hollowing out of political competition. In the iv conclusion of my dissertation I reflect on what is right and wrong on the two sides of the debate.

Defence date: 7 February 2009
Examining Board: Prof. Peter Wagner, University of Trento and formerly EUI (Supervisor); Prof. Richard Bellamy, University College London; Prof. Claus Offe, Hertie School of Governance, Berlin; Prof. Neil Walker, University of Edinburgh and formerly EUI
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digital archive of EUI PhD theses
This thesis proposes a new way of addressing two central questions in the study of the European Union: What is the nature of the European Union as a political entity and how does it emerge? The point of departure is the, by now widely accepted, conceptualisation of the EU as a polity and the extensive discussions, not least in normative and prescriptive terms, that this process implied. Judging that many of the debates have reached dead-ends, the thesis proposes a novel way of conceptualising the concept ‘polity’ in its application to the European Union. It argues that the European Union polity should be understood as a configuration of agreements to collectively address common problems. The thesis then offers an analysis of three such fields of agreed upon common activities over the period 1992 to 2005 which are constitutive of the European Union polity and construct its boundedness: ‘Enlargement to the East’; ‘Immigration policy’; and ‘Europe as an actor in the world.’ Under scrutiny includes: the context in which these policies emerged; the normative ideas through which the problems at stake were identified; and the agreed-upon mechanisms for addressing common problems. To understand the emergence and nature of these common activities, the thesis proposes a concept-centred approach. It argues that concepts are constitutive for the European Union polity. The concepts constitute the agreements to address problems in common and thus ‘form’ the European Union polity. Thereby, the thesis shows the ways in which five key concepts - human rights, democracy, diversity, prosperity and security - are effective (‘their power’ or ‘efficacy’) and which Gestalt (‘meaning’) they take on in these specific problem-ridden situations. Particular attention is paid to the relationship and, specifically, tensions between the different normative concepts as well as the compromises that they form and the re-configuration of the respective policy fields they bring about. The thesis concludes that these findings should be interpreted as a self-understanding of the European Union. This self-understanding encompasses the commitment to a set of ideas, the decision to take action in certain political domains and, not least, the selfidentification as a political actor and entity. Thus, focusing on the power and Gestalt of concepts without falling into an abstract idealism, the thesis combines an approach of a historical sociology, cultural sociology and the history of concepts with key concerns of European Union studies.

Defense date: 18 December 2009
Examining Board: Adrienne Héritier (EUI/RSCAS), Anker Brink Lund (Copenhagen Business School), Gianpietro Mazzoleni (University of Milan) (External Co-Supervisor), Alexander H. Trechsel (EUI) (Supervisor)
François Mény Prize for the Best Comparative Study of Political Institutions, 2010.
In this thesis, I demonstrate that the degree of political independence that a public service broadcaster has depends on the degree of legal protection given to it, and on the size of the market for news in that country. The latter affects broadcaster independence by creating more standardized and professionalized news, which in turn reduces politicians’ incentives to intervene in the broadcaster. The former affects broadcaster independence by making it less likely that such intervention will be effective. I demonstrate these claims in two ways. First, I conduct a large-N statistical analysis of 36 public service broadcasters (PSBs), in which I demonstrate that legal protection news market size are statistically significant predictors of PSB independence (as I operationalize it), and that other suggested explanatory factors — party system polarization and bureaucratic partisanship — have no effect. Second, I carry out a comparative historical analysis of six European PSBs—Radiotelevisione Italiana, Radiotelevisión Española, Radio Telefís Éireann (Ireland), the British Broadcasting Corporation, Danmarks Radio, and Sveriges Radio and its associated companies (Sweden) — and substantiate the claims made in my statistical analysis. In particular, I demonstrate that where the market for news was bigger, broadcasters capitalised on pre-existing journalistic experience, adopting the house-styles of press agencies and learning from journalists’ associations. Conversely, where the market was small, that experience could not be drawn on, and broadcast journalism attracted political intervention.
Version of thesis published as a book "HANRETTY, Chris, Public Broadcasting and Political Interference, Abingdon/New York, Routledge, 2011, Routledge Research in Political Communication"

Defence date: 09 June 2008
Examining Board: Prof. Peter Wagner, University of Trento and EUI Supervisor Prof. Alexander Trechsel, EUI Prof. Jürg Steiner, University of Carolina Prof. Hanspeter Kriesi, University of Zürich
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digital archive of EUI PhD theses
In this work we will attempt to evaluate which of these scenarios is most likely to become prominent in the future by focusing essentially on three issues: 1) the usage of the online forum by observing how diffuse the phenomenon is and who the users of the online debates are; 2) The offer of the online political forum, by analyzing which are the political actors (civil society, media, institutional actors) who are more susceptible to host the online political debates; and 3) the quality of the online debates by assessing their deliberativeness. By elaborating a sophisticated method for measuring the deliberativeness of the online debates and by analyzing a great variety of online debates our objective is to provide an appreciation of the deliberative potential of the web-debates that avoids shortcuts and inappropriate generalizations, but that recognizes that this may be determined by a multiplicity of factors. From a theoretical perspective the results obtained through our investigations contribute to evaluate whether the deliberative model of democracy could be fostered by the virtualization of the political debates and, more generally, it should also contribute to the elaboration of a deliberative model of democracy that is grounded not only on theoretical principles and suppositions, as this tends to be the case, but also on empirical studies that test its adaptability to the 'real life politics'.

Defence date: 10 June 2005
Examining board: Prof. Andrew Webster (University of York) ; Prof. Donatella Della Porta (EUI) ; Prof. Klaus Eder (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, external co-supervisor) ; Prof. Colin Crouch (University of Warwick, former EUI, supervisor)
First made available online 31 August 2016
Ideas about public engagement with controversial technologies are growing in political prominence. This dissertation delivers a theoretically grounded, empirical analysis of why active public involvement is considered to be of growing importance for the legitimate use of new technologies. It examines the different social dynamics influencing actual attempts to engage the public and the difficulties encountered. Janus Hansen argues that while there are strong normative reasons to further public engagement with the regulation of controversial technologies, there are also strong sociological reasons to reflect carefully on what such engagement can realistically achieve. This dissertation delivers conceptual tools and empirical analyses to support such reflections based on in-depth case studies of important attempts to engage public concerns across Europe.

Defence date: 28 May 2007
Examining board: Prof. Friedrich Kratochwil, European University Institute (Supervisor) ; Prof. Daniel Deudney, Johns Hopkins University ; Prof. Sergio Fabbrini, Università degli Studi di Trento ; Prof. Alexander H. Trechsel, European University Institute
As a novel and complex polity, also subject to endless proposals for institutional reform, the viability of the EU is an open but under-theorized question. This thesis conceptualizes EU viability from an internal perspective, that is, the viability of the process of integration rather than Europe as a viable actor in international politics. Adopting the concept of a compound polity to understand the tensions inherent in the EU, viability is defined in relation to the -rules of the game- of this compound system. This gambit has a twofold purpose. Firstly, it permits an analogy with another historical case of a compound system, the antebellum US republic. Secondly, it enables the specification of two scenarios of viability in a compound polity: dynamic equilibrium and voluntary centralization. Four aspects of the rules of the game (institutions, expectations, competence allocation and representative functions) are analysed to determine which scenario the EU follows. The analogy with the early US and its own conflicts over these four elements of the rules of the game is then contrasted with the EU experience. Five differences in how these disputes arise and the means for trying to settle them are singled out to explain the differing problems of viability in both compound polities. The results of this analogical analysis are then used to explore the appropriateness of certain proposed changes to the rules of the game in the EU, notably in the area of political representation. In a system accustomed to dynamic equilibrium, enhancing the representation of individuals is often seen as a condition for favouring more voluntary centralization. However, the analysis of conflicts over the rules of the game in two compound systems suggests a more cautious approach is required in the interests of viability. Hence this study presents itself as a significant, if incomplete, initial step in the process of identifying what makes the EU viable.